HYDERABAD, Oct 9: The majority of district council members in a session on Monday put their weight behind a resolution demanding the district government to launch “a ruthless anti-encroachment drive” to solve the problem of hours-long traffic jams.

They said that the district’s ban on the entry of heavy vehicles including trucks and busses into the city had somewhat eased the traffic chaos. The resolution was put forward by Parveen Lodhi, a council member.

Mehboob Abro identified encroachments as the biggest hurdle to smooth flow of traffic and said the district government had done nothing to remove them. Merely banning entry of buses would not help, he added.

He slammed the Hyderabad Development Authority (HAD) for digging up two main arteries to lay sewers and called it a conspiracy against the poor because only they had to bear the brunt in the absence of buses, a cheaper mode of travelling for them. Besides, women felt secure in buses, he said.

Q Hakim supported the ban during the holy month of Ramazan and urged that nobody should politicize the issue as it had not prevented people from the rural areas from entering the city.

Vehicles from Hatri, Husri, Tandojam, Kotri and other areas were still entering the city at different points but the district government had just restricted their movement in the larger interest of people, he said.

“A ruthless anti-encroachment drive should be launched without making any discrimination so that the existing roads can be widened. The pushcarts shouldn’t be allowed to stand or move on the footpaths which are exclusively for the pedestrians,” he said.

Arguing that police had failed to enforce the writ of law turning traffic regulation into a colossal task, he proposed the formation of a committee of council members to ensure the vehicles plying on the roads were fit and decide whether the city needed to register anymore rickshaws.

Ysin Soomro said that traffic problem was the most serious and opposed digging up several roads at a time, which he said led to traffic jams.

The area in and around electronics market was heavily encroached upon and faced the worst traffic jams but the traffic police’s attention was focussed on Rani Bagh Chowk where “they are busy collecting their ‘eidee’ leaving them with little time to perform their duties.”